The growth was led by a massive 89 per cent jump in the home PC segment which crossed the 200,000 mark. This was followed by the small business and small office segment which posted growth rates higher than the market average. According to IDC figures, the three segments collectively accounted for 51 per cent of the market, up 12 percentage points from 1997-98.

The home segment had a 23.7 per cent market share in PC shipments followed by medium business at 18.6 per cent and large business at 16.6 per cent. Small business was marginally lower at 16.5 per cent, while small office stood at 11.2 per cent. Both government and education had negligible shares at 9.7 per cent and 3.8 per cent respectively.

HCLcontinued to maintain its position as market leader with an 8.4 per cent share by units and 7.9 per cent share by value. Compaq was in the second place followed by Zenith and IBM in the third and fourth place respectively. Local assemblers and Genuine Intel Dealers coming under the category of "others" (see table) beat all the vendors with a 57.5 per cent share by units and 44.9 per cent share by value.

"HCL and Zenith did well because of a good presence in the fastest growing segments of the market -- home, small office and small business. Vendors who have taken the lead in targeting the growing segments are the ones who have emerged as winners," IDC said.

After being virtually stagnant in the 1997-98, PC servers recorded a robust 27 per cent growth fuelled by demand from financial institutions and banks during the latter half of the year. Growth in the notebook segment was constrained at at 10 per cent primarily because demand was restricted to corporates. High prices vis-a-vis similarly configureddesktop PCs were the main deterrent. Desktop PCs grew commensurate with the market growth.